When they did, Layne left Blondie with Sully at the Station knowing Jas’s dog would love him forever, such was her excitement at being left in a place full of men who liked dogs as well as a variety of corners she could stick her nose into to experience a variety of new and unusual smells.
“Things good?” Colt asked from the passenger seat.
“Workin’ on it,” Layne answered.
“How’s Rocky?” Colt went on.
“Workin’ on that too,” Layne replied and Colt chuckled.
“Can’t say I wasn’t shocked as shit coupla weeks ago,” Colt remarked.
“Everyone’s shocked as shit, includin’ me,” Layne told him.
Colt was silent a moment before he asked quietly, his voice openly concerned, “It goin’ okay?”
Alec Colton was a good cop, a good man and a good friend. They’d worked together years ago, he’d been that way then and he was that way now. Colt knew Layne before Rocky left him and after. He knew what she meant to him and he knew what it meant she was back.
Therefore, Layne said quietly back, “Path’s full of thorns.”
Another moment of silence and then Colt replied, “You get to the rose, man, it’s unbelievably soft and smells incredibly fuckin’ sweet.”
It hit Layne then that Colt and Feb had lived their own bittersweet love story in that ‘burg. Colt was a few years older than Layne but he’d been at high school with Feb. With Colt best friends with February’s brother since he was in kindergarten, Colt had known Feb forever. They’d been solid, unshakable, the couple who hooked up in high school that everyone knew would stick true. They didn’t. Layne had no idea what went down except it wasn’t good. Colt had stayed in the ‘burg and, working with him, Layne knew the loss of Feb, even years after, was a loss that stayed fresh. Like Layne, Feb had taken off and she’d been gone even longer than Layne. She came back a few years ago and they’d hooked up again when a local guy lost control of what was left of his mind and went on a killing spree in Feb’s name. Colt had stepped in to keep her safe and they’d come out of that back together, solid, unshakable, now married with a kid. Whatever tore them apart, they found a way to put it behind them and they made it through.
Reminded of this, Layne could say at that juncture that reminder was really freaking welcome.
“So I take it Feb’s good,” Layne noted.
“Yeah, man, Feb is good.” Colt’s words were weighty and Layne didn’t try to stop his smile.
Layne drove out of the ‘burg, they hit the vast fields that surrounded it and he changed the subject. “Run this down for me.”
Colt didn’t hesitate. “Guy’s name is Ryker. It’s happening, he knows about it.”
“Informant?”
“He isn’t adverse to sharing information when he might get somethin’ outta it.”
Layne glanced at Colt then back at the road. “He the kind of guy I wanna owe a favor?”
“That’s the beauty of this, Tanner. Ryker is not a friend of Carlito’s and no one is a friend of Stew’s. I reckon he won’t consider it a favor to share what he knows about Stew.”
Layne found himself smiling again.
Layne had learned one thing from his father, a man he’d never met, or he hadn’t met him at a time where Layne was old enough to form a coherent thought, and that was you not only didn’t shit where you lived, you didn’t shit anywhere. Layne had grown up watching his mother struggle to keep a roof over their heads, working as a secretary, going to night school, studying to be an accountant, having no time to do it and even less money so it took her freaking forever. But she did it and began to make more money but she always had to work. Layne was a latchkey kid, she had no choice but to lean on him to help her out by learning how to take care of himself early on and the minute he could earn, he did what he could to kick in. His aunt and grandparents did as much as they could but they had their own lives to lead. She was his Mom but Layne knew his mother was a looker. He also knew she was a good woman, she was funny, she was sweet, her family adored her and she had dozens of friends, all of whom she could call close. A man losing out on that, shitting where he lived, turning his back on a good woman and family and never looking back, let the whole world slip through his own fingers.
Layne had fucked up twice and both of them were royally. The first time was out of his control when the condom broke when he was with Gabby and it was now not debatable that he’d fucked up nailing Gabby in the first place, drunk or not. The second time was when he left his sons and the last year he’d given a lot of headspace to trying to remember why the fuck he did that at all.
Gabby was a bitch and divorcing her made her worse and Rocky was in that town. Layne had felt tied down, not by his sons, but by the history with Rocky and Gabby that fenced him in. This brought up the urge to get out of that ‘burg and roam. There were things he wanted to do, wanted to see and wanted to learn, things he couldn’t learn, see and do in a small town. He’d told Rocky all about this shit when they were together and she was with him all the way because she shared his need to roam, to learn, to see, to do. They had plans and, once she graduated from Butler, they were going to go. They didn’t know where but it would be somewhere.
He found what he was searching for in St. Louis, San Antonio, Reno, Phoenix and LA but he lost more by leaving what really mattered at home and he’d paid a mighty price for that fuck up. Nevertheless, he made more friends than enemies along the way, case in point, Devin Glover dropping everything and hitting town after getting a phone call.
Jarrod Astley and Stew Baranski hadn’t learned not to shit where they lived, where they worked, wherever they wanted. They didn’t care who they screwed over. You couldn’t live your life like that and not face retribution eventually.